A Pattern to the Chaos
by Bre'Lakor
Summary: It wasn't intentional what happened that night, but he thought he'd never see her again so what did it matter if some of his blood flowed through her veins to spare her life while she was dying? But then someone else turned her and brought her back to him as a Malkavian, and Nines was having a hard time trying to sort the insanity from the wisdom. Short F!Malk Fledgling/Nines fic
1. Chapter 1

Not intending on this fic being very long, but hopefully someone will enjoy it!

One thing of note: I'm playing with the idea that Malkavians are attracted to people who are already not 100% sane and that most Malkavians had some kind of mental health issue before they were turned. The fledgling in this scenario had schizophrenia while they were human but essentially was a functioning member of society while medicated for it. I'm not going to go into much details in the fic because I'm definitely not an expert on the field and I don't want to offend anyone, so just putting it out there. Anything that the fledgling says or does after they are turned is completely due to their Malkavian blood and not their schizophrenia.

Also playing with the idea of blood bonds between ghouls and their 'masters'.

* * *

 **One**

How was it that time seemed to slow down on a Friday afternoon when all anyone wanted was to go home? The ticking of the clock felt like it was stagnant, refusing to move past 4 o'clock. Miriam had been staring at it for at least five minutes, her dark brow furrowed underneath her fringe as if her displeasure at the work day not being over would somehow will time faster. Predictably, it didn't, so she sighed and went back to trying to write that email she'd been procrastinating over for the last hour.

Finally, no way near soon enough, home time came around and Miriam shut down her computer, stood up and grabbed her things from her desk a little faster than might be considered strictly necessary. She shrugged into her blue jacket, and then grinned as she caught sight of the thick curly hair of her colleague and friend, Samantha, approaching her.

"Ready for drinks?" her friend asked with a grin as Miriam buttoned up her jacket.

"Are cats assholes?"

Samantha frowned. "What?"

"Never mind, where do you want to go?" Miriam kicked herself mentally for not keeping a better check on her mouth. Spouting off comments that she thought were funny rarely seemed that way to other people and was probably why most people thought she was more than a little quirky.

"Well, I was thinking we could go somewhere different," Samantha started as she held the door open for her friend, the thick noise and bustle of downtown LA filling their ears as they began down the street. "I'm getting kind of sick of our usual Friday haunt, plus I keep seeing Andrew there. Ugh."

"I told you he was a tool when you started dating," Miriam replied, linking her arm with her friend as their high heels clacked on the concrete pavement. "He had that creepy look in his eyes, like he goes home every night and pulls the wings off butterflies."

"Yeah, yeah, 'you told me so'." The curly haired woman gave a snort of derision and then quickly changed the subject. "So I was thinking that place round the corner from the office, think it's called the Last Round?"

Miriam shot her a look of surprise. "The place that looks like it's a front for a drug cartel?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic it doesn't look that bad!"

"It absolutely does! I bet you $50 we'd get kidnapped, killed and left in a dumpster within ten minutes of walking into that place!"

" _Please_?" Samantha whined. "We can give it a go and if it turns out too seedy inside we'll leave and go somewhere else, or go back to your place and get pizza and watch a crappy romantic comedy on TV."

"Fine, fine, but it's your turn to buy."

Samantha grinned, tugging her friend around a corner towards the bar that Miriam really hoped wouldn't end up with their bodies being found by the police.

o0o

"Creepy..." Miriam muttered to herself as they navigated their way through the decent sized crowd of people inside the bar.

The music inside was deafeningly loud, a thick haze of smoke in the air and more than a few patrons wearing black gothic clothes and heavy makeup. Samanatha and her looked more than a little bit of out of place in their smart office clothes and hair. Her friend dragged her towards the bar, jumping onto two free seats and grabbing the attention of the man serving drinks.

"Two ciders, please!" the curly hair woman requested, a pleasant smile painted across her features while Miriam glanced around, taking in the scene before her.

There were booths on the other side of the bar, filled with couples, more than one of whom seemed to be getting _quite_ enthusiastic with each other. One of them had an oddly dressed man in a top hat and feathery white coat, whispering in the ear of a blonde girl. In the corner, by an old tatty pinball machine was a small group of people, a woman with bright red lipstick, a man with an impressive beard, another with golden earrings, and third with piercing blue eyes that were staring right at Miriam and her friend beneath a furrowed brow. But staring wasn't really the right word, calculating fitted that look better, reading, judging intent and more than a little disapproving. This wasn't a welcoming place, that much was plainly obvious.

"Here." Samantha nudged her, pushing a cold bottle into her hands.

Miriam took an absent minded sip, and then frowned. "How _old_ is this?"

"Not sure," her friend replied, following her gaze around the room. "Huh. This place is weird."

"I told you we shouldn't have come here-"

"Oh, shush you."

Miriam rolled her eyes, nursing her drink while trying to ignore the man in the corner who was still frowning at them, his lips whispering to his friends words that she couldn't hope to hear over the heavy din of the music. Perturbed, she glanced away and her eyes found the man in the feathered coat again, whose mouth was covering the neck of the girl beside him. Kissing her, perhaps? But the closer she looked the less it seemed like it, almost as if he was- but _no_ , that was crazy, his lips were just tinged red from the girls lipstick. Tearing her eyes away, she caught the sight of the blue eyed man in the corner moving through the crowd towards them with a cold look painting his face, and Miriam knew then this had been a terrible idea.

"Sam, we should leave," she started with urgency in her voice, "we don't belong here."

"What-"

"Just trust me, we need to go," Miriam interrupted and she grabbed her friends hand, dragging her away from their unfinished drinks and through the crowd towards the door.

A quick glance over her shoulder and she saw the man worryingly close, how did he get through the crowd so quickly, so easily? She hurried, pushing people out of the way and ignoring the annoyed responses she got until the door was within reach. Slipping outside, they started down the street, confused protests coming from Samantha until they rounded a corner and Miriam obliged slowing down to a stop.

"What the hell, Miri?" the curly hair woman asked, more than a little out of breath and flustered.

"Someone was following us," Miriam replied, glancing around the corner to where they'd come from.

"There's no one there, just some bums at the end of the street," Samantha added and she was right, the blue eyed man wasn't behind them and neither was anyone from the bar, the street was quiet and as far as Miriam could tell, completely normal. A frown pulled at her brow, she'd been so sure he was following them, did she overreact - or had she slipped up taking her medications that day?

Samantha tugged on her hand. "Come on, let's just go back to your place, I'm starving."

Miriam obliged, the frown on her features refusing to abate while she continued to glance behind her every few seconds as they walked through the streets to where her apartment was.

o0o

"Idiot kook!" the woman with the red lipstick growled, glowering at the man with the feathered jacket and blood stained mouth in the upstairs room of the Last Round. "That stupid kine saw you feeding!"

"It was within the walls of Elysium, it should expect the sharp fangs to be biting the neck flesh and drinking the red nectar!" the man protested, his top hat flopping more than a little outrageously as he crossed his arms over his chest, irritation evident on his features.

"Fucking Malks, can't you just talk normally-"

"Damsel, enough," the blue eyed man interrupted softly, pursing his lips before turning to his two other companions, the darker skinned man with golden earrings and the older man with the beard. "Who let the kine in?"

"I did," the man with the earrings replied, irritation evident in his voice. "I thought they were someone's ghouls or feed for the night, not some random kine off the street." He sighed. "What idiot girls walk into a bar like this? It doesn't exactly look friendly from the outside."

"'Splains why they came in here asking for fucking cider, hah!" the man with the beard mused with a chuckle at the end. "Fucking kine, man, walking into a bar full of Anarch vamps like it's some sissy Toreador's club."

"We need to take care of them before the Camarilla get their pants in a twist." The blue eyed man turned to the one in the feathered coat who was wiping his mouth. "You, Wyatt, you're coming with me. We'll find the kine and you'll dementate them into forgetting what they saw."

"We have another tricksy plan for the Nines," Wyatt replied, a somewhat mad grin pulling at his lips. All Nines did was raise an eyebrow, the disinterest obvious on his features. "We turn the black haired one and kill curly!"

"Are you fucking mad?" Damsel blurted.

The Malkavian stared at her as if the answer was obvious. "Yes?"

All it earned him was an annoyed glare from the woman as she added, "You'll bring LaCroix down on our necks if you go turning anyone you want without his goddamn ' _permission'_."

"But the black haired one, it is as mad as we are," he protested. "We can hear it's voices within it's skull, dulled down by pesky doctors but still there, whispering, murmuring, still there, still there! JUST AS MAD AS US."

"I'm going to fucking kill him, I don't care if he's an Anarch." Damsel rolled up her sleeves, her fists balled and eyes flashing with fury before a growl tore from her throat when the darker skinned man put an arm in front of her, restraining her.

"I may just help you if he doesn't clean up this mess," Nines muttered, the threat obvious in voice as he narrowed his eyes into a glare at the Malkavian who huffed and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Very well, we will dementate the breathing ones for the Ten minus One."

Nines nodded, his features set with a grim determination at the task before them.

o0o

They were being followed, she knew it but Samantha didn't take it seriously, perhaps her friend had drunk more than she realised given the giggling coming from her lips. Miriam didn't find the situation funny, she kept glancing behind her, seeing two of the men from the bar metres away, then less and less until they could have reached out and touched them. And she definitely wasn't imagining this, she hadn't hallucinated once since her doctors brought her erratic mind under control with the right medication. No one knew these days that there was anything amiss with her bar from the pills she had to take to keep her thoughts in check.

Should she break into a run, then, she wondered? But Samantha wouldn't follow, and she couldn't leave her friend, and would she even be able to outrun the men anyway? They were fast, they'd closed the distance between them remarkably quickly. Perhaps she could phone the police, she doubted she had any other option so she slipped her hand into her jacket, closing her fingers around the cool plastic of her mobile.

Samantha moved to cross the street and so she followed, but while her friend moved to the pavement on the other side, Miriam stopped in the middle of the road and turned to face the men, showing her phone to them and pointing her finger with her free hand.

"I don't know why you're following us, but-" she started but the words died in her throat when the sound of rubber screeching on cement filled the street.

A car swerved around the corner, knocking into her and the man with the blue eyes and throwing them to the ground before smashing into a powerpole further down the street, steam billowing from the hood and onlookers screaming at the sight.

Miriam groaned, pain wracking her body were gravel had embedded into flesh, bones contorted out of joints and broken, blood seeping out of wounds. Her head was spinning, the bright lights of the street lamps blurring before her eyes but she tried to pull herself up, a hand clutched to her chest coming away stained red. Heart beat thundering in her ears, she caught sight of the blue eyed man beside her, still, unmoving, his eyes closed and panic filled her.

Instinct took over, that one first aid class she'd done so long ago and she forgot in her delirium that he'd been following her because did that really mean she shouldn't care if he was dead? Fingers bloody and trembling she grasped at his wrist, tried to find a pulse but there wasn't one – and his chest wasn't moving either.

"God," she croaked, her voice raspy before she added, as loud as she could, "Sam? Sam, call an ambulance!"

"Miri!" her friend shouted and she was beside her in seconds, brown eyes desperately trying to take in the situation, assess her wounds as if she actually had any medical training and could help her. "Oh my god, you're bleeding, your arm-"

"He's dead, Sam," the black haired woman interrupted, a choking noise filling her throat as her emotions took hold, unable to process the situation with the pain wracking her body.

"What? Who cares! He's a creep following us like that, we need to get you to a hospital!"

"But that doesn't mean he deserved to die," she replied and Samantha stood up, fingers fumbling over numbers on her phone as she frantically called for help. All Miriam could do was stare at the body, shocked and wracked with pain and she couldn't believe someone had just died before her very eyes.

Blood loss brought delirium to her within moments and her vision blurred, her arms too weak to support her so she collapsed to the ground, her breath and pulse racing as the sounds of sirens filled the air, but she knew somehow she wouldn't make it. She must have really been hallucinating then because the dead man beside her opened his eyes, as clear and piercing ice blue as when he'd been alive and he sat up as if he was completely uninjured, as if nothing had even happened. A moment passed when she felt her life ebbing away, the ambulance too far away but then he turned to her, stared for a moment into her eyes with lips parted as if considering, weighing up choices and consequences.

It happened swiftly, his bloody wrist pressed to her lips and she was too weak to protest, to even ask what the hell he was doing or if any of this was even real. Blood filled her mouth, flowed down her throat, metallic and cold on her tongue for some reason yet it should have been warm while it was fresh from his cuts.

Unconsciousness claimed her moments later, her world spiralling black and the last the thing she remembered was the sound of the paramedics trying to save her life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

Miriam survived, god only knew how and her doctors wouldn't stop telling her that she was healing remarkably fast. The police questioned her about what happened but she couldn't remember much, couldn't even remember why they'd left the bar, only being hit by the car and a man with blue eyes dead beside her before the ambulance arrived. The police told her there hadn't been anyone matching that description at the scene, and Samantha wasn't much help because she was struggling to sort her own memories out between the shock and alcohol she'd had that night.

Miriam knew the man with the blue eyes had existed though, she could feel it in her bones, in her soul, something she couldn't explain but just _knew_. It felt like an irresistibly urge, a desire to find and know who he had been but she didn't know where to look. Eventually she dismissed the feelings as stress following the accident and she pushed them out as she tried to get one with her life. Things almost seemed to be returning to normal after a while, she was back at work and aside from some scars she was just as healthy as before the car hit her.

Days turned into weeks, people's concern about her faded and her confidence grew until eventually she was laughing and joining Samantha for dinner or drinks after work as they used to. That evening they were in a restaurant, gossiping about one of their new co-workers before Miriam excused herself to use the bathroom, which she found easily enough given the number of times they'd frequented the establishment.

It was as she was washing her hands that it happened, warm water running over her fingers as someone else's closed around her mouth from behind her, silencing her screams. A needle pricked her skin, a sharp stinging sensation before an overwhelming feeling of lethargy took over her. She collapsed to the floor, passed out and unable to fight back when her attacker picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

o0o

"Suppose we should've seen this coming," Damsel murmured from her seat beside Nines, her arms crossed over her chest and a look of disdain on her features at having to endure the suffering of being in the same room as LaCroix. She raised a hand in front of her face, blocking the splatter of blood when the axe swung down and beheaded the man in the feather jacket who had been kneeling on the stage.

"I know Malks are mad and all, but openly embracing someone without _permission_ strikes me as fucking stupid rather than crazy." She spat her sentence out as if it left a dirty taste in her mouth.

"Nines..." Skelter started and he leant over, whispering in his ear as the other man stared intently at the stage, at the pile of ashes on one end and the girl bound at the other with the yellow and blue eyes, pitch black hair and sickly grey skin of someone who'd just been turned and hadn't drank yet. "That's the girl from that car crash all those weeks ago."

"Shit..." A sigh tore from Nines' lips.

Damsel turned to face the two men and frowned. "I thought she _died_? No way a kine should've survived that." When Nines didn't reply her features turned suspicious, damn her and that she could read him too well. "What did you do?"

"I'll tell you later-"

"You turned her into a ghoul, didn't you?" Skelter interrupted a little too loudly, drawing a look of annoyance from LaCroix while he pranced around on stage spouting off his speech. "The fuck, man? What the hell where you thinking?"

" _I'll explain later_." Each word left his lips punctuated, irritated while his narrowed blue eyes watched the girl on stage and the idiot in the black suit.

Both his companions looked as if they'd quite rather discuss this now, but they let it go for the time being when LaCroix's speech reached a climax. The blond had turned to the black haired woman on the stage and it was then Nines realised he was going to kill her too. Rage welled up inside him, hot and ugly, boiling the supernatural Brujah blood in his veins. He was protesting in seconds, fury coursing through him and before he really knew what he was doing he was on his feet, his voice filling the theatre when he yelled, "This is _bullshit_!"

The hands of his friends were on his shoulders in moments, trying to restrain him but the anger in him made him stronger and he'd break free from them if he had too. Muscles stretched taut under his clothes, fists clenched into tight balls so that sharp nails dug into skin, eyes narrowed and teeth and fangs bared as he dared the prince to make his move, play his cards. One long moment stretched between the two men while their eyes bored into each other, a silent conversation judging how far the other would dare move to stretch the tenuous peace that existed between them.

Finally, one of them caved – and it wasn't Nines. The prince dismissed his executioner, spared the girls life. With hindsight, and in days to come, they both would come to regret that decision.

o0o

Her dreams were more like nightmares, so vivid she swore they were real. Someone was biting into her neck, drinking her blood, draining her dry but she couldn't fight back. It felt... bizarre, neither good nor bad but mingled with the strange sensation of knowing she was dying. Except she didn't, when she was drained, when she knew she shouldn't be alive a breath of life filled her. Yet it wasn't really life but a pale reflection of it, accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of thirst, of hunger for _blood_.

Then the voices started, a cacophony in her mind of hundreds of different personalities, as if her own had been shattered into pieces and every part of her had turned into their own individual being. But it felt... normal. As if she'd always been this way, and in some ways she supposed she had but never to this extent before.

Her eyes fluttered open and she realised very quickly she hadn't been dreaming, the voices in her head made that quite obvious. What followed she had a hard time understanding but men had broken down the door to the room she was in, grabbed her and the man in the corner – who was he? He looked oddly familiar with that feather jacket. And then she was being thrown into a truck, grabbed again and pushed to her knees on what looked like a stage with her hands bound behind her back. Again she thought, am I going to die? They killed the man in the feather jacket so she supposed she was next too, but someone interrupted, someone with piercing blue eyes that she could just make out between the haze in her mind from her thirst and the voices in her head.

He saved her, she presumed, but she didn't have time to thank him before she was dumped on the steps of a theatre with vague instructions from a blond haired man as to what she was meant to do. A deep laugh filled her ears and she turned to face the sound, the voices in her mind unifying to allow her to function. They were still there, still hundreds of them squashed into one head but working together to imitate someone of sane mind.

"Hah hah!" The laughing man found this situation hilarious apparently. "What a shit show, they just dump you out here on the street and leave you to fend for yourself!"

"We don't understand the dark play they showed tonight," Miriam replied and her words felt oddly normal, as if she should have been speaking this way all her life.

"Huh? What you going on about, kid?" His beard was oddly hypnotising, she noted, it seemed to have a life of it's own.

"They smashed with the axe on the birds neck, but we escaped, flew free from the cage and the jailer!"

Another bout of laughter took over the man and when he composed himself again he exclaimed, "And you're a fucking Malkavian, bet it was that idiot Wyatt who turned you, right? Couldn't tell from the back row but guess he got his way at last."

She frowned, confusion evident in her yellow and blue eyes. "We don't understand the words that spew from your grey matter."

"Don't worry, kid, you can ask the Anarch's about it sometime if you survive this mess." A pause, and he chuckled once more as he appraised her. "Man are you fucked though. You better let me show you the ropes."

"We can display ropes all day but we relish the offer to be shown the proper arrangement from you," she replied. Strange, she thought, her words seemed to make sense in her mind – but it appeared that others didn't see it that way.

o0o

"Spill it, Nines," Damsel demanded when they were back in the Last Round, her feet dangling from the chair she sat on that was too high for her to reach the floor. "What happened that night?"

"You know most of it," Nines replied disinterestedly, leaning on the counter of the bar, his thick arms corded with muscle. "I took Wyatt with me to dementate those two girls into forgetting what they saw."

"And somewhere 'dementate them into forgetting' turned into 'making one of them a ghoul'," Damsel finished. "I'm finding it hard to understand that leap in logic."

"The girl with the black hair and myself got hit by a car, she was dying and she knew I'd been following her yet she still tried to see if I was alive, to help me." He frowned at the memory playing in his mind. "It was a stupid decision, but at the time... she didn't deserve to die, and she seemed like a better person than most of the pieces of shit that call themselves humans in this city."

"And bless your bleeding heart, you had to go and save her," Skelter started, his back against the bar while his arms crossed over his chest. "Sure you weren't bit by a Toreador all those years ago?"

Nines shot him a glower. "I know it was a stupid decision, do I look like an idiot?"

"I'm starting to wonder..." Damsel murmured with a roll of her eyes. "Thank god she didn't do anything stupid enough to get the Camarilla involved. Making a ghoul and sending her off into the world to fend for herself with your own blood flowing through her veins... She could have done any number of dumb shit that would have ' _broken the Masquerade_.'" She phrased the last bit laced in sarcasm, her fingers making quotation marks in the air that clearly showed her derision for the Camarilla's rules.

"Not that it really matters now Wyatt's turned her." Skelter shrugged, drumming his fingers on his biceps. "Guess the idiot finally got what he wanted, he wouldn't stop talking about how he wanted to turn that girl."

"Crazy attracts crazy," a new voice added and the three of them glanced up to see Jack approaching, a familiar grin on his lips. "That girl's fucking batshit, told me she's been schizophrenic for years when she was human and phew! You should see her now she's got Malkav blood." A chuckle tore from his throat. "Always said Malkavian's only turn people who are already half as mad as they are."

"Better mad than dead," Nines offered softly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

Hmm. She perhaps didn't think this through properly, but taking a cab seemed like a safe option. To be fair, it was the getting out of the cab that had been the dangerous part. And the baseball bat over the back of her head, that had been pretty dangerous too. Miriam frowned, dirt covering her clothes from where she'd been shoved into the ground by her sabbat attackers. All things considered she wasn't entirely sure how she'd get out of this situation. Perhaps that was what provoked the mad burst of giggles that took over her, then again why her mind did anything it did these days tended to elude her.

"What's so funny?" one of the sabbat growled, his foot pressing down onto her chest, muddying her white clothes.

"Won't be laughing when you're dead!" another added.

"You're in for it now!" she cackled, her yellow and blue eyes bright and luminous under the street lights and the words poured forth from her instinctively, little did she truly realise the predications she was spouting. "He's coming, he'll go 'BANG! BANG! You filthy sabbat vermin' and you'll be like 'POW! POW! Ooooh, you wascaly wampire! You got me!' EXPLOSION."

They stared at her for a long moment, mouths agape before one of them muttered, "Ugh, Malkavians... someone pass me my gun, ought to put this nutcase out of her misery."

Cold metal pressed to her skull, it would have scared her if her mind were wired differently but she simply grinned up at them, one word forming on her red lips: Boom.

The shot tore threw the air but it wasn't from the gun pressed to her temple, the bullet clipping the side of one of the sabbat and they cursed, all three of them spinning around to stare at the newcomer with his gun still cocked towards her attackers.

"Leave," he commanded, and she recognised him from the theatre, the one with the blue eyes who'd saved her before. She liked those blue eyes, the colours were lovely – one of her voices wanted to wear them around her neck like a pendant. Another voice wanted to waste away the hours of undead eternity staring into those blue orbs.

"There's three of us, Rodriguez," one of the sabbat growled, "What are you going to do? Shoot us?"

A hand patted the grenade strapped to his belt, the threat clear as Miriam cackled on the ground and filled in the silence with, "Boom!"

The sabbat hissed in frustration, fingers flexing and teeth baring as they weighed up risk and consequences before making the decision to leave. They scampered, one of them muttering an angry, "This isn't over," his sentence directed at neither and both of them at the same time.

"The name's Nines. Trouble sure seems to follow you, kid," Nines mused as he lowered his gun and stepped closer.

Pulling herself up off the ground she met his eyes, _such_ pretty eyes, they would make a lovely necklace - _shut up_! Why did his blood smell so familiar to her? She gazed at him for a long moment, took in every feature, every crease and line of his face and curve of muscle. She liked the way his body knitted it's flesh together, one of her wanted to feel it under her fingers but she wasn't completely certain why, she didn't feel this way about other vampires.

"We had the situation controlled under," she replied after several moments.

A dark eyebrow rose on his features, his amusement evident as he humoured her with a soft, "Really? Because you look like shit to me."

"We have the boom-stick!" She grabbed her gun, pointing it no where in particular but rather to emphasise the point. "Bullets to make the brains splatter. The grey matter is very _squishy_."

"Easy, kid, calm down." Nines chuckled and placed a hand on her weapon, gently urging her to sheath it and the distraction was momentary but one of the sabbat used it as an opportunity to run and lunge at the Brujah. His own gun was waiting, though, and shot a clean bullet through the sabbat's chest, turning him into ash. "Good effort," he drawled. "Execution needs a little work though."

Sheathing his gun at his belt he looked her up and down, his lips pulling into a thin line before he added, "If you're still alive in a few nights time come by the Last Round. Someone ought to teach you how to fight if you want any chance at surviving in this shithole."

"Our many voices will consider it."

He blinked at her. "...Right. Try not to get yourself killed, kid."

"We appreciate your sight orbs," she added quickly as he moved to leave and then turned back to her, the blue objects of her desire widening in surprise. "We would like to make a necklace out of them. If you were to no longer require them."

"I'll include them to you in my will." A soft chuckled rumbled in his throat, and when he left she distinctively heard him mutter, " _Malkavians_."

o0o

She found the _Round_ of _Last_ easily enough, stepping through the doors and into the bar and finding the oddly familiar sound of deafening music filling her ears. There weren't many people inside, she had expected more, but after a chat with Jack and Helter Skelter she found her way up the stairs to stand before the numbered man. Nines leant against the wall, his hand tapping on the plaster but he faced her when she approached, an eyebrow arched in mild interest.

"I see you've managed to stay alive long enough to find us here," he mused and one of her was offended that he didn't think she would make it this far. "LaCroix still got you running around like a dog on a leash?"

"Regretfully we are still bound to the jester prince," she paused and placed her hands on her hips, grinning at the thoughts running crazed circles in her head, "But we killed all the fleshy ones in the warehouse and amongst the Elizabetheans. He is still unhappy with us."

"Pissing off LaCroix already, huh?" Something like a twinkle flashed in his eyes to match the smirk that tugged at his lips. "Maybe that Brujah blood hasn't completely worked it's way out your system yet after all."

A frown stole over her features. "We don't understand. We only have the desire to create delicious chaos and count the bottles in the bar downstairs. Yesterday we wasted an entire night cycle counting the bottles in Janus' home."

"I'm not even going to pretend that I understand what you just said," he muttered but she found no derision or mocking in his voice, not like some other of the kindred did when they heard the words that fell from her lips – calling her names, saying she was _crazy_. It was offensive to her voices, she was just as sane as anyone else in her mind, perhaps more-so because she saw the things that others missed.

Nines shifted, casting an appraising look over her flesh with his blue eyes. She would have put something nicer on if she knew he was going to look at her like _that_. Then she realised she didn't have anything nicer, she should buy some more clothes, she couldn't remember where her apartment used to be.

"You want some tips on how to survive in LA, kid?"

"We would relish any tips that come from your lips," one of her voices replied. The one that wanted to wile away the hours with the numbers, damn that voice, she would need to keep it in check, it was much too fond of the Nines.

"Hold your hands like this," he instructed, and his fingers, cold and hard slipped around her wrists, pulling her arms into position. "Most vamps like to come in close and personal, try and dodge the first attack and then come in around from behind. And try not to get on the wrong side of a shotgun."

"And the other tips we see brimming in your grey matter?" she prompted as he released her, a small feeling of disappointment from the lost contact sputtering weakly inside her for a moment.

"The Camarilla's full of shit, once your done with LaCroix don't give him the time of night." Teeth bared for a moment, a snarl escaping his throat that she knew wasn't directed at her. "LA's the school of hard knocks, kid, keep your friends close and your enemies in a fire-pit."

"We will attempt to roast the juicy flesh of our enemies at every opportunity we get," she replied with a nod, she wanted him to know she understood his advice. "And keep our companions at our side and out of the barbecue. And our lovers-"

"No such thing as love in this world, you can dump that idea back where you left your sanity, Malk," he interrupted, and his words annoyed her, how did he know that to be true? "Start acting like you're out of some trashy airport paperback and you'll find Final Death quicker than one of those sabbat idiots. The only people who have time for crap like that are ghouls and Toreador's, and even then it's just bullshit from blood bonding most of the time."

His features softened for a moment, perhaps she looked hurt or disappointed. "Keep your head on as straight as you can, kid, only way you'll stand a chance in this world."

"Our mind may be on wonky but we think clearly somewhere inside of us."

"I'm sure." It came as a disinterested drawl, as if he were simply humouring her the same way the other kindred did when they knew what blood ran through her. It annoyed her, she thought he was meant to be different. "Time's up, kid, I've got things to do. Come around again in a few nights if you're still alive."

"We will consider it," she muttered and turned away, frustrated by their conversation and too choked up in her thoughts to catch the brief look of curiosity that flashed over Nines' features when he knew she wasn't looking.

o0o

Jack was right, she was completely crazy, Nines felt like he needed a translator to understand half the things that spewed from her lips. But the kid had a remarkably strong Anarch tendency, she really must still be under the influence of the small bit of Brujah blood he'd given her. The mixture of Brujah and Malkavian was causing some hilarious rumours to float his way about the things she was doing to piss off LaCroix though. It seemed that she got away with it because of her madness and the prince simply thought she screwed up all his missions because she didn't have the sanity to do it properly, far less did he suspect it was because the heart of an Anarch burnt bright in her dead chest.

As far as Nines was concerned, his split decision to save the girl's life all those weeks ago had happily turned into a benefit to him and his cause. Miriam popped into the Last Round every few days, chatted with Damsel a lot and occasionally traded words with Nines himself.

That evening he'd left his usual haunt and was wandering through the streets Downtown, looking for a feed when he found her in the middle of the road, not all that far from where they'd both been hit by the car so long ago. She had her hands on her hips, her brow furrowed beneath her dark fringe and yellow and blue eyes staring intently at what looked like a stop sign.

Nines stepped closer and parted his lips to catch her attention, but silenced himself when he heard her speak first. But not to him.

"No," she started, very defiantly towards the sign. "YOU stop!"

A pause for a moment and Nines could only gape at her – really he shouldn't be that surprised at the situation.

"NO, YOU STOP!" she repeated, evidently becoming more and more flustered.

One split second of hesitation as she glanced away, closed her eyes tightly shut and then looked back at the sign, perhaps expecting it to have changed. It didn't, so she yelled, "AHHH, STOP!"

Fangs bared, a hiss tearing from her throat and fingers with sharp nails flexing at her sides. Then, a hand reached forward, pointing accusingly at the sign as she stared it down. "You've made a powerful enemy today, sign."

And just like that, she composed herself once more as if nothing had happened, dusted herself off and turned to continue down the street. She was clearly too wrapped up in her own head because she bumped, quite literally, into Nines who caught her gently by the shoulders and pushed her away. Blinking up at him she cocked her head, eyes bright and wide under her dark fringe. He swallowed as he took in the sight of her, the skirt and tight fitting top that didn't leave much to the imagine – and then wondered why the hell he was thinking along _those_ lines. He hadn't felt that way about someone since he was human, clearly her crazy was rubbing off on him, he reasoned, and he found that fairly concerning as he squashed the unwanted thoughts filtering through his mind.

"We didn't expect to see the Numbered One here, are you complete in your business with the Primogen?"

"The Primogen? Which Primogen?" Nines murmured, a frown pulling at his brow to mirror his confusion at her words.

"We saw you leaving the mansion with the badly plastered Grout." Cocking her head at him, she considered for a moment something far beyond Nines' comprehension. "We did not think it seemed the same as the Numbered One, though. The eyes were not the alike, not as shiny. But we found the stabby in the Grout's chest."

"Grout's... dead," Nines put together after a few moments.

"Even more dead than we are!" Suddenly, a look of concern took over her and her eyes filled with something that remarkably seemed to resemble fear. "The Jester Prince thinks it was your stabby in the Grout's chest because we told him we saw you leaving the mansion."

He gaped at her. "You told him _what_?" It was hard to keep the disbelief out of his voice, did she do it on purpose or was she too mad to realise the consequences of her actions?

Her features became crestfallen. "We did the wrong thing?"

"I'd say so," he growled, his mind racing to try and piece together what the hell he was meant to do if the Camarilla thought he'd killed a Primogen. "What else did LaCroix say?"

"We remember the words blood hunt being mentioned."

" _Fuck_."

"We didn't mean-"

He snapped, hissing at her with fury brimming in his eyes as he growled, "Shut it, kid, you've done enough damage." 

"We take back our comments!" she retorted, a familiar fury in her eyes so similar to the one that ran so passionately through own his cold blood. "Your eyes would make an ugly necklace."

"Just get out of here," he murmured, waving his hand as if it would make her leave as his other dragged through his hair, tangling in dark locks as a curse fell from his lips and he tried to find the right course of action. How long before they'd be hot on his heels, how long before every vampire in LA wanted his dead heart?

He left her on the street, rushing back to the Last Round while he tried to piece together a plan through his angry thoughts, tinged with Brujah passion and desperately trying to think straight when all his mind would focus on was that he wanted to kill that idiot prince.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

The Anarch's were not happy with Miriam, her voices pieced that together the moment she stepped back into the Last Round. The glares in her direction, the snarl from Damsel who had quite seemed to like her up until that point, and Helter Skelter who had always been pleasant to her.

"You've got some nerve coming back in here," Skelter started, his eyes narrowed at her as she approached where he was standing.

"We didn't intend for this-"

"Sure, Malk, I'm not going to pretend to understand what the hell goes on in your mind," he interrupted, the anger evident in his voice so strongly that she flinched, "But you might want to give thinking a try next time you get a blood hunt called on someone."

"No lies passed from our lips, we saw the Numbered One at the mansion," she protested.

"Coming from someone who was recently caught talking to a stop sign, that's not exactly reassuring." Skelter sighed, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose for a long moment before shaking his head and looking at her once more. "For what it's worth, I don't think you'd do something like this on purpose, but there's a lot of Anarch's in this city who won't see it that way. Shitload of people around here owe a lot to Nines, you better lay low for a bit."

"Where is the Numbered One?" A frown graced her features, the brief annoyance she'd felt towards the blue eyed man disappearing to be overwhelmed with concern for his wellbeing. She felt like she didn't know what she'd do if she never saw him again, which was pretty ridiculous but she couldn't stop the worry throbbing in her head. She was missing the scent of his blood already, what if she never smelt it again, never saw the eyes, never-

Hands smacked her head, beating herself to rid the thoughts running amok in her mind and she'd probably been whispering maniacally to herself because Skelter grabbed her wrists, pulled her arms to her side and stared at her with eyes wide in alarm.

"Woah, kid, calm down, he's just gone into hiding for now. It'll be alright."

"No, it won't! We need the blood, need it in our veins again, need to feel the taste on our tongue! _Preciou_ _s_ , precious! Where is he? We must protect the crystal blue eyes, keep them safe!" She was screaming now, her mind breaking and running in circles, every voice battling with each other, none in control, madness consuming her and then she was on her knees, hands pressed to her ears as she yelled, her voice barely coherent.

"What the hell is going on?" Another voice chimed in, it sounded female, Damsel?

Miriam wouldn't see them, she refused with her eyes squeezed shut, her speech erratic and crazed as she repeated, over and over, "Numbered One! The blood, the blood! We _need_ it!"

"I think she bonded to Nines when she was his ghoul," Skelter murmured.

Damsel muttered a curse. "Get her in the back room, we need to restrain her before she hurts herself. God, why did she have to be a Malk? The fuck are we meant to do with a kook that's having a total mental breakdown?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Damsel."

o0o

Hair and clothes too dirty, he knew he'd been hanging out in that park for a couple of days too long. Vampires didn't sweat the same as humans did, but Nines still felt dirty, muddy and his clothes covered in dust from sleeping in that abandoned observatory all day long. He'd been careful returning to town, but he trusted Jack when he said they'd be safe in his run-down hotel in Hollywood, if only for a few hours.

His boots clacked on wooden floorboards as he climbed the steep steps, billows of dust erupting around his ankles to join the dirt already covering his clothes. When he reached the room upstairs, he found Skelter, Damsel and Jack standing in the room, muttering to each other – and their crazy Malkavian girl on a bed, asleep, her arms folded over her chest with a needle in her.

"You shouldn't be back here," Skelter started and Nines shrugged softly.

"I'm aware. Damsel said it was important, though, so I expect the risk to be worth it."

The woman in question shoved a finger towards the Malkavian. "The kook's bonded to you, Nines."

If his features could have paled to match the dread in his stomach, they would have. "That's... going to cause problems."

"No shit." Damsel sighed deeply, running a hand through her hair. "She had a total breakdown when she realised you were gone, we had to sedate her before she started beating herself up with her own hands."

"How long before my blood works it's way out of her system?" Nines asked softly, frowning as he glanced at the girl.

"Well, if she was a ghoul it shouldv'e worn off by now, but she isn't, so..." Skelter shrugged helplessly. "Who knows? She seemed to have it under control though until she realised you were gone, not like other bonded ghouls who spend every waking minute thinking about their masters."

"I'll wake her up and talk some sense into her," Nines replied, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. "She obviously had enough willpower to keep this under wraps until now, if she can wrangle some fragment of sanity into her mind again I don't see why she wouldn't be able to keep going as she was before."

"Alright." Damsel stepped towards the girl, ripping the needle out of her arm. "She's pretty doped up on sedatives so it'll take her awhile to come round." She cast a glance at Nines, her nose wrinkling. "You look like shit, you should take a shower in the meantime."

"Thanks," he replied dryly, but he wasn't going to argue her suggestion.

o0o

It was blissful to wash the dirt and grime out of his hair, he'd forgotten what it felt like to be clean. Fingers trailed through messy dark hair, working out tangles and knots, scrubbing away the mud and blood caked onto muscles from where he'd been forced into feeding on animals to survive during his exile. Drying off most of the water he shrugged into his jeans, gathered his top and jacket in his arms and slipped out of the small bathroom to wonder if the girl was awake yet. He found her crouched on the bed, a hand to her forehead as she blinked slowly away the heavy sleep she'd been under.

"You alright, kid?" he asked as gently as he could, sitting down beside her on the bed and sweeping wet locks of hair out of his face.

"We aren't sure. Perhaps? Maybe?" She groaned softly. "The mind is very fuzzy."

"It'll wear off. Damsel doped you up because you were having a psychosis."

"We remember this..." Yellow and blue eyes glanced up at him, narrowed under a gentle frown. "Several of our voices were concerned that you were gone. Others were less so."

"I know, I need to tell you something." He explained it as best he could, how he'd seen her in the bar when she was still a human and hoped to erase her memories of what she'd seen rather than have to kill her. Of how they'd both been hit by the car together and he'd taken pity on her, saved her life by making her a ghoul but that he'd honestly never expected to see her again – and his surprise when she'd wound up back in his life once more, although significantly less sane than the first time he'd met her.

Eyes widened in understanding, then a gentle bite at her lip before she murmured, "This explains why we knew the smell of your blood when we saw you using the boom-stick on the sabbat."

"It'll wear off eventually, kid." _I hope_ , he neglected to add. "Just try and keep your mind in one piece until then, the Camarilla won't hesitate to put you down if you start making a habit of falling into psychosis at the slightest provocation."

"Our mind has not been in one piece since the fangs feasted on our blood, but we will try and keep the pieces working together."

"I suppose that's the best we can ask for from a Malk," he muttered, more to himself than to her. Pushing himself off from the bed, he turned to grab the rest of his clothes, but hesitated when cold delicate fingers curled around his wrist.

"Numbered One," she whispered, "Wait."

A glance back at her, cool blue eyes raking over her body for the briefest of moments and he lied to himself that he hadn't felt that small fiery burst of heat in his blood when he saw the look she was giving him. Was he falling for the same damn curse he'd pushed into her veins? God, he hoped not.

"I have to go, kid-"

"We _want_ you." She was on her feet in one fluid motion, pulling him towards her, wrapping her cold arms around his neck and closing the distance between them with a firm kiss on his lips. Stunned for seconds, he stood there, arms hanging in the air as he tried to wrap his mind around what he should be doing, trying to convince himself that she wasn't really doing this of her own will but rather his blood flowing through her.

Then, he snapped, a fire burning up inside his cold dead heart and he grabbed at her waist, choked up on a desire he hadn't felt in decades and he was pushing her lips open, running his tongue over her fangs until he found her own and drawing a moan from her throat. He pushed her back down against the bed rougher than he'd intended, but the beast welling up in his mind was making him irrational and heavy handed and he was running his hands over her body, tugging at unwanted clothes and buckles until a small, fleeting semblance of sanity wormed it's way into his mind.

It was abrupt when he pulled back, a hand quickly covering his mouth to hide and wipe away the blood that was staining his lips from where he'd sunk his fangs into her lips, but she didn't look like she cared, her pupils so dilated with lust he couldn't see the gold or blue in her eyes any more.

"We thought about this for many many hours and days," she gasped after several moments.

"You only thought about this because you bonded with me when I made you my ghoul," he muttered offhandedly, trying to convince himself as much as her that this was an involuntary and annoying curse he had to suffer through until it wore off. "It'll pass, just try and keep your emotions in check until then."

He turned to leave, made for the door and he wished he hadn't heard what she whispered as he did so, wished she didn't have her damn insight and chose to believe it wasn't true.

"It won't be singing that song the next time we see it."


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

Wasting away time in an abandoned observatory got tiresome very quickly. Nines only dared leave for short periods of time and whittled away the rest as best he could. Would that he could go into torpor but he couldn't leave himself vulnerable to hunters or werewolves. If he ever got his hands on LaCroix, he'd wring that worthless vampires neck for putting him through these weeks of perpetual boredom.

He spent that night cleaning the chambers of his guns, hands slick with grease while he sat cross legged with his back against the cool metal of the observatory. He'd been on edge for weeks, ears pricked to pick up the slightest disturbance and so he heard her far sooner than his eyes laid upon her. Feet walking on metal floors, he'd slid his gun back together and pressed his back to the wall near the entrance of the room in a few swift strides. She stepped through moments later, clad in tight black leather and had he realised it was her before he moved he might have reconsidered his steps.

But he didn't notice it was her in the darkness, and his hand closed around her mouth with remarkable dexterity, his gun pressed into her side as he hissed in her ear, "If you're looking for a trophy kill, you should have picked a different target."

Mumbled words died against his hand and he tightened his hands on the trigger, until a familiar scent filled his nose and he realised who she was. His hand slipped quickly from her mouth, gun sheathing at his side and he stepped back to stare at her, more than a bit surprised to find her there.

"What are you doing here, kid?"

"We were asked by the Jester Prince to extend apologies, but we do not trust his tricksy words." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "We know he lies but we are not sure about what."

"There's a surprise," Nines muttered dryly. When had he ever expected LaCroix to be straight with anyone, let alone not try and screw people over?

A small smile tugged at her red lips as she briefly looked him over. "We missed you." When his lips parted to dismiss her feelings she added, quickly, "Not because of the shared blood, we have lost that in our system many suns ago. We missed the company and the personality." She paused a moment, a rueful look staining her features. "We are tired of having no one to chew words with but Damsel."

He looked at her carefully for a long moment, trying to judge and feel if anything from that illfated bond he'd made between them resided – and he felt nothing. Relieved, he allowed himself to smile. "I heard rumours you've been making LaCroix's life hell, making quite a name for yourself."

"We try our best. It is fun to see the twitching in his forehead when he angers." A grin pulled at her lips that was more than a little bit sadistic. Perhaps he should be proud of her, she was turning into more of an Anarch than she was.

"So, LaCroix sent you here to tell me they've called off the blood hunt, then? That he needs us all of a sudden for an alliance?" She nodded her affirmation. "Forgive me if that doesn't sound right to me."

"Forgiven. The Camarilla tremble at the sight of the Eastern bloodsuckers."

"The kue-jin?" A curse fell from his lips and he pressed a hand to his brow, shaking his head. "Shit, kid, I can't make this decision. You're putting me stuck between a rock and a son of a bitch."

"We would prefer the rock, it is more predictable, geology rarely stabs one in the back," she stated flatly.

"Ugh, this is a shitshow." He raked a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth in the observatory a moment before turning back to her and her curious yellow and blue eyes. "Do you have any idea what the kue-jin are capable of? How they view us? And LaCroix wants to go to war with them all of a sudden?"

She shrugged. "The tunes sounded odd to our ears too, but most tunes do apart from those from another Looney."

His nose wrinkled, glancing around until his blue eyes found the open door to the observatory and the all too familiar and unwelcome scent the breeze brought with it. "Something's not right."

"We thought we had established that-"

"Not what I meant, kid." Lips pulled back over his teeth, a soft hiss to match the baring of his fangs. "Do you smell that? That's smoke."

"Ah! We will barbecue our enemies!"

He shot her an incredulous look for a brief moment, then shook his head in disbelief. "Not like that, we have to get out of here." He moved to the door, stepped outside and cast his gaze around until he found the smouldering fires in the distance. "Shit, kid, were you followed?"

A frown graced her features but he interrupted her before she had the chance to reply. "That fire's man made, it's coming from every direction, we have to go, _now_."

"We only smell a small fire, it shouldn't burn us-"

"It's wasn't set to kill us," he pressed a hand to the small of her back, pushing her onwards where his words didn't seem to sink in the importance of the situation, "We have to go get to the tram- _shit_."

A howl echoed in the distance, deep and long, filling him with dread and he tore his gaze around, trying to pinpoint where it came from when she murmured quizzically, "We did not imagine that noise, did we?"

"I didn't hide out here for the nice view," he growled, his fingers slipping to his gun with practised ease as his blood fired up within his veins, rage building in anticipation of what was coming. "I did it because no one would come looking for me here, this is werewolf country."

"Troublesome," she stated flatly.

"They'll be out for blood from that fire." He loaded his gun, put his finger over the trigger although why he bothered he didn't know, his bullets wouldn't do shit against a werewolf if one of them found them. Pushing her with his other hand towards the tram station, he added, "Kid, c'mon, move!"

"We could try bringing a dog treat-"

He didn't hear the end of her sentence when something smashed into him, claws ripping into his flesh and fangs sinking into his arm, a furious growl ripping from his throat to match the werewolf trying to maul him. They flew off the cliff, his hands balled into fists and trying to punch the beast in the head, as if it might make a difference and then he was falling – instinct and bloodlust kicking in and he barely remembered the events that followed from the savage Brujah fury flooding through his veins.

o0o

A string of profanity left Nines' lips as he staggered through the Hollywood streets, one hand bloody and grasped in the fur of the beast's head and the other clutched around his side, trying in vain to stem the steady flow of blood seeping from the gashes and lacerations in his mangled flesh. Blood was running from the cut in his forehead and down his face, pooling at his chin and dripping from his short stubble. He was probably attracting attention, but he could care less in that moment, all he wanted was help.

He made towards the run down hotel on instinct, a vague memory in the back of his head from when he'd decided with Skelter and Damsel that they'd use that as a backup safehouse if shit ever hit the fan, which, given the situation, it definitely had. Lucky for him, they remembered that conversation too and Damsel shouted his name when he staggered into to hotel, his feet dragging.

"Oh my god," she practically yelled, "You're alive? Is that...?"

"Shit man, you killed a werewolf?" Skelter grinned at him and he couldn't help but return it, although it pained Nines to pull his face like that given his injuries. " _Nice_."

"You want it?" He threw the blasted head at his friend, his strength failing him finally so that he staggered and grasped onto the hotel's desk to steady himself. Where the clerk had gone he didn't know, far less cared. "Little help would be appreciated, if you wouldn't mind."

They both hurried towards him, an arm slipped around his back from each side and he groaned in pain with each step they helped him up until he could collapse on the bed in one of the rooms. Damsel brought towels from the bathroom that he pressed, gingerly, to the cut on his forehead for a moment as he caught his strength once more. The blood drenching his clothes made it hard to know where he'd been mangled and where he hadn't, so he worked his jacket and top off while Skelter placed the werewolf's head neatly on a table in the room. Damsel had disappeared, promising to bring bloodpacks back with her while Nines dabbed at cuts and lacerations with increasingly blood towels.

"You hear anything about the kid?" Nines murmured after a while, his voice dry and scratchy in the back of his throat.

Skelter shook his head. "Not a word."

"Damn." He leant back against the wall behind him, gazing pointlessly up at the ceiling and realising that he felt disappointed, concerned even – a foreign emotion to him that he hadn't felt in years, but he genuinely hoped she wasn't dead.

"Ahh! Imposter!" Perhaps he'd thought too soon about missing her. "The real Nines is in the belly of a wolf!"

She was pointing a finger at him, shooting him an accusing look as if it would force him to admit he wasn't the real Nines. All he could do was laugh softly from where he still sat on the bed, blood drenched towels around him and empty blood packs on the floor.

"You mean that guy?" he offered, inclining his head towards the trophy werewolf head sitting on the table. Skelter had done a nice job of arranging it before he left the room, what with it's tongue sticking out and eyes open – it would make a tasteful victory prize when all this shit was over. She stepped towards it, poking it inquisitively as if to ascertain if it were real while he told her how they'd been set up and what he'd learnt.

"Time to pick a side, kid," he offered her when he eventually had all the cards laid out on the table. "It's the end game now, us – or them. Got a preference?"

A grin spread over her features. "You have all of us, which is all you need."

He couldn't have missed the twinkle in her eye if he'd wanted to, so he stared for a long moment, wondering if she really had gotten over the entirety of that damn blood bond after all. But he could tell she had, the look in her eyes was different, changed – it wasn't one doped up on irrational puppy love, it was the look of someone with a deep set determination that knew what they wanted. The only issue for him was he wasn't certain if what she wanted was to gut as many of LaCroix's goons as she could, or grab him by his jaw and kiss him. Truthfully he wasn't entirely certain which he wanted either.

"To the revolution, then? Kill them both and damn the rest, LA stays an Anarch free state as long as I'm alive."

"We already hear the people singing the song of angry men," she giggled, then corrected with, "Uh, angry vampires."

For a long moment he stared at her before murmuring, "Seriously, kid, if you're going to start singing shit from musicals, I'm done."

"You ruin all of our fun." He had to chuckle at the pout that she gave him but he obliged telling her what the plan was, how they'd fix this mess with cleaving Xiao and LaCroix's heads.

"Wish I could join you, but I've already pushed fate too far for one night. Take this, though." He stood up, grabbing an unused grenade from his belt and pressing it into her icy cold hands. She slipped it into a pocket of her clothes, then gazed up at him, her multicoloured eyes meeting his cool blue ones and for a long moment he simply stared.

"One last thing," he started softly, his eyes darting from her face and to her lips, the soft flesh at her neck and chest. "Promise me you don't feel any of that blood bond shit in you any more?"

"Our mind is one hundred percent filled with our madness and our madness alone."

" _Good_."

A bloody hand cupped her cheek swiftly, lips pressing to hers in a hungry kiss as his arm snaked around her waist. She hesitated for a moment at first, but then her fingers were tangling in his matted hair, her head tilting and her tongue insisting to deepen their kiss. A desire like fire burnt inside him, ignorant of the voice in his head that had told him for decades that vampires shouldn't do this, and far less could. He realised that night it wasn't true, that passion could rage just as strongly through his dead veins now as it did when he was still alive.

And this time, when he pushed her onto the bed, covered her body in kisses and tore at her clothes, it wasn't because the mixing of some of their blood.

o0o

"Where's Jack?" Skelter shouted over the thick din of music flooding the Last Round, so heavy you could feel the beat thundering through the ground.

"Who cares!" Damsel laughed, taking a deep breath of a cigarette while she lapped up the chance to celebrate LaCroix's demise. "He'll turn up again eventually, always does."

"We know where the Smiling One resides," Miriam offered and she had to shout to be heard over the music, Nines would've told them to quiet it down a bit but he couldn't bring himself to break up their celebrations.

"Ahh, don't go spouting off your kook shit tonight for once!" Damsel waved a hand, far too intent on enjoying herself that night than trying to decipher the madness behind the words the woman who'd killed LaCroix spouted.

Miriam glowered at her briefly but the look faded when Nines curled a hand around her own and said, as softly as he could while still being heard, "Don't take it personally, she hasn't had many opportunities to celebrate anything in recent years since the Camarilla starting moving back into town."

"We will squash them next," the Malkavian replied defiantly.

"Easy there, take it one enemy at a time." He grinned at her, a hand worming down to rest at her waist. "Besides, they're already backing off, they know they've lost."

"We could still shoot the boom-sticks at them, though."

He laughed, deep and full of mirth. "You sure you really aren't a Brujah after all?"

She nodded. "Positively, we would not have this many voices in our head if we were like you."

"Oh, come here." He pulled at her wrist, dragging her towards one of the old couches in the corner of the room. Shins hitting the side, he fell into it, his hands running up her thighs as she knelt over him, arms around his neck and fluttering kisses against his lips.

"Ugh, you two are like some shitty romance novel," Damsel shouted from the other side of the room.

All it earned her was Nines' middle finger displayed in her direction while his other hand tangled in Miriam's black hair, his eager lips parting beneath hers. Any concerns he had for LA and her future fled him that night, between the ecstatic celebrations and the woman in his arms, he could care less in that moment. Let the future come when it wanted – they'd all earned a reprieve.

 **End**


End file.
